


Relinquished

by not_whelmed_yet



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Backstory, Framing Story, Gen, Homelessness, Origin Story, Pre-War, Racing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-12 15:48:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11740200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_whelmed_yet/pseuds/not_whelmed_yet
Summary: Work abandoned in favor ofObserving DriftAfter the storytelling session Rewind had organized, Ratchet had cornered Drift about his medical history."It's more blanks than history," he'd said, or something to that effect. "I know you've been rebuilt since then, but did you ever actually go to a relinquishment clinic? Some of the slag they did in those places can leave permanent spark damage."After Overlord's attack on the ship, Drift tells Ratchet his life story, trying to justifywhyhe'd gone to a relinquishment clinic all those years ago. After Drift is exiled, Ratchet can't bear to listen to it, but he keeps the recording.Now he's on his way to fetch a certain self-sacrificing lunkhead and he finds himself listing to that recording again, against his better judgement.





	1. Racer

**Author's Note:**

> A work in progress, that I hope some of you enjoy! I'm hoping to cover Drift's life up to the point where he first met Ratchet. Basically imagine Oliver Twist (or better yet, King of the Wind, if you've read it) with robots. That's what we're going for here.

Ratchet considered the darkened medibay, then the datapad he held in his hands. It wasn't really part of the crew medical files, not anymore. But he couldn't bear to throw it away. After a moment's hesitation, he tucked it into his subspace and resumed cleaning up. First Aid was supposed to be on shift in a few minutes, but there was a solid chance he wouldn't show. He'd been...withdrawn was probably the kindest word; ever since Pharma and Ambulon and the whole mess with Tyrest. But Ratchet had to recharge at some point. The medbots would monitor the situation and send him a comm if there was anything needing his attention.

Ratchet made a quick check to his chronometer, then sent First Aid one more memo, reminding him of his shift start time and that, if he was needed, he'd be in his hab.

Once there, he considered the datapad again. He'd never even run most of it through the audio to text conversion program. He wasn't sure why it had ever been filed with the medical logs - it was only dubiously a medical log. And so very personal. He ran a cable over to the console and plugged the pad in.

There was a moment before the console passed the loading screen, but Drift's voice cut in abruptly. He hit the pause command so fast that it paused and unpaused again, Drift's voice continuing to fill his habsuite.

"You're recording this? Can't you just...write down the important bits?"

"My hands are kind of busy right now, I can multi-

He jammed the pause again and his voice cut out.

They'd made the recording right after Overlord, while Ratchet had still been triaging patients. Drift had been drugged to the gills on sensor blockers while waiting for Ratchet to finish reattaching his legs.

A while before that, after the storytelling session Rewind had organized, Ratchet had cornered Drift about his medical history.

"It's more blanks than history," he'd said, or something to that effect. "I know you've been rebuilt since then, but did you ever actually go to a relinquishment clinic? Some of the slag they did in those places can leave permanent spark damage."

Drift had bolted rather than answer. He must have gone to one of the other medics to actually patch up the busted hand tensor he'd acquired sparring with Rodimus, because Ratchet didn't see him again until after Temptoria. Worried he'd scare Drift off, he hadn't brought up the Relinquishment Clinic question again.

But then, after Overlord, either the drugs or the guilt must have put Drift in a talkative mood. He'd tried to explain the Relinquishment Clinic, but kept backing up to justify himself whenever Ratchet would start looking 'judgey.' Which was apparently all the time, because eventually he'd ended up all the way at the beginning.

He couldn't do it, Ratchet decided. He couldn't sit there and listen to Drift baring his spark again, not when his feelings were so twisted up in betrayal and anger and overwhelming confusion. Why would Drift have betrayed them, risked the crew for whatever secrets Overlord may have held? It seemed out of character. But he'd confessed.

He unplugged the pad and stowed it carefully in one of the drawers at his desk.

 

* * *

 

It was a long time before he looked at that datapad again. Far too long. But when he was packing to take the shuttle to fetch Drift home, somehow it ended up on board. And during the long hours of solo spaceflight, he started to think about that tape.

His feelings hadn't grown less confusing since Rodimus admitted to the crew that he'd let Drift take the fall for Overlord. They'd grown, if anything, more confusing. But now the overwhelming horror and betrayal had been crowded by anger on Drift's behalf and a small uncomfortable feeling he didn't dare call pity, but wasn't sure what to name otherwise.

And so, against his better judgment, he queued up the audio file and sped ahead a bit. Both so he wouldn't have to listen to him and Drift's awkward back-and-forth at the start of the tape and so he could start at the beginning. Drift's beginning.

 

_The first thing I can remember-I know you're itching to start talking about the rates of mystical experiences in Cold Constructs. Don't. The first thing I can remember is the distinct sensation of Energon beginning to flow through empty fuel lines, pushing the air out as it went. I was so cold, I remember being cold, and the fuel was hot. It was like my body was flowing into being. As each line filled I became aware of my body around it. And then I was all there, but I was empty. I knew nothing. I didn't know how to move, how to see. I barely_ _knew_ that _I was, let alone what I was. I remember that moment lasting aeons._

Next had come the data downloads. This was still the first wave of Cold Construction. There hadn't been any real standard for integrating everything a citizen needed to know into their processor. Instead, each workshop and mech assembly had taken a different tact. Some had made nurseries for their newsparks. Some had run their charges through a rigorous schooling and physical therapy regime as they found their legs, their wings, their wheels.

Drift hadn't been so lucky. His whole batch had gotten direct data downloads, for everything. How to turn on their optics, how to control their frame, what a mech was, the Cybertronian language, little dribs and drabs of culture and history. They didn't release their frames from the circuit slabs until the full download was complete and they were ready to turn them out into the world.

But not very far out into the world.

"All of you are racers." Their manager was named Naucratis. "You've been designed to be the fastest racers out there. There's going to be a Functionist functionary here soon to assess you and give you your proper ID cards. And after that, well, you're free to go. If you want."

They'd looked at each other, the nine of them, and wondered where else they could go. They understood, from the information they'd been rushed through, that you could only perform the job the Functionists deemed your proper job. What else could a racer do but race? What could they do without a manager? That information hadn't been included.

The Functionist was very efficient. He had each of them transform, verified that they were indeed racer stock, and got a name so he could print out their ID and apply his seal. Drift had been shaking by the time they got to him, Naucratis following after the functionary and speaking for each of his charges.

_That was the first time I ever transformed. I'm not sure how normal that is? Did everybody have to do that? Primus, thinking about it gives me the shakes. Everybody staring while I'm trying to figure out how the heck to activate my T-cog._

Once he'd transformed, the Functionist had nodded and looked over at Naucratis. "Name?"

"This one's Drift."

"Alright," the Functionist had said, typing that into his little datapad. "It's not in the system yet, so you're okay. Drift of Polyhex. Perform your function with pride."

Eventually he left, leaving Naucratis with nine bewildered new racers, each clutching their still-warm ID cards. It was a few nights before they got to leave the factory and move into the stable. That was what Naucratis had called the single-room habsuite the nine of them shared. And that was when racing and practice became their lives.

_He was surprisingly_ _patient, Naucratis. He had a business partner that wanted us racing that same cycle, but Naucratis was content to run us on practice tracks for three cycles before we ever saw a real race. He must have been making money somehow, he owned the factory...I think_ _he saw the possibility of one of us beating out Blurr as his real chance at fame. I didn't really_ _think about it at the time, though. Back then,_ everything _was about racing._

Drift's first real race was a city to city from Polyhex to Praxis. An endurance run with plenty of tight corners and low stakes. He lost.

_I came literally_ _dead last. Barely_ _thirty kliks into the race, one of the other racers hit a guardrail and spun out. He hit me and knocked me clear off the track. I hit the guardrail so fast I_ _broke it – went straight_ _over the side. And this was one of those elevated roads they had over the waterways. I transformed on my way down and swam to shore, but then I had to climb back up. The track was so long and the route officials so few that by the time anybody had arrived to assist the pack was already unreachable._

_I was so far behind at that point that the official asked if I even wanted to keep going. But I was terrified_ _of what Naucratis might do if I didn't finish, so I said I wanted to go. It was eerie. The rest of the race, I never saw a soul. I finished only five kliks behind the pack. So I must have topped even the pack leaders for average speed. But I never saw a soul. It was just_ _me and the road, the whole way through._

_I got in trouble for finishing last, of course._

Blurr had come round the medibay after the race finished, where the race officials were replacing tires and testing engine stress and, in Drift's case, pumping canal water out of his fuel intake. Blurr had rapped him on the shoulder and said, “Good race, kid. That was a nasty fall out there. Good on you for finishing.”

Drift had been too starstruck to reply, just watched in awe as Blurr flitted away to chat up some of the other racers, shaking hands and talking up a storm.

After they'd all gotten back to the stable and Naucratis had talked all the others through the flaws in their race performance, they had refueled and turned in for recharge. Everyone except Drift, who went with Naucratis down to their practice track.

“Look, I don't want to be cruel. I'm sure today was very disappointing for you as well,” Naucratis said. “But we can't win if we're just the fastest. You have to be the best at everything. And that includes defensive driving.”

“It was an accident,” Drift had said.

“If you're good enough, you don't make mistakes. You can go inside and recharge when I'm convinced you would never make that mistake again. Come here.”

He'd fiddled with Drift's HUD program for a few minutes, then set him out on the track. “Start with a hundred laps,” he'd said with a dismissive wave of his hand, settling in to look at something on his datapad.

Nothing seemed different, but Drift started forwards slowly, a wary eye on the track and every detail of his display. After a few kliks with nothing different, he began to accelerate. Then a car appeared out of nowhere from his left blindspot and banked sharply towards him. He jammed on the brakes, realizing instantly that was the wrong move when the car collided with him.

And kept on going, sliding through him like a ghost. It was just a projection on his display.

“You have to avoid them!” Naucratis yelled from the other side of the track. “Add another lap!”

On cue the lap counter on his HUD ticked up by one. Drift recovered his wits and started forwards again, twice as wary of any vehicles appearing out of nowhere as he sped around the corner. The next projection clipped his back when he tried to accelerate away from it and the counter incremented again. On the next one, he transformed back to root mode and slid under the projection, finials barely grazing the underside. Naucratis hollered and clapped as he transformed back to alt and accelerated around the ghost car, hands stinging from where they'd been grazed on the track.

The program wasn't that smart – after a few more tries he started to figure out its tricks and stopped gaining extra laps. When the next projection ran down the track right at him, he didn't try to swerve around it. Instead, he accelerated smoothly into the transition, caught himself at a run and kept straight over it, rolling on the ground and then running back into the transition. He couldn't even hear what Naucratis said in response, his engine roaring in his audials as he took the corner and the loop again. He'd never transitioned into and out of a run before.

Around lap eighty, he started to grow so tired that the projections were crashing into him again. At ninety, he was running on fumes so thin that Naucratis stopped him out of pity. “Not terrible,” he'd said. “You can practice more tomorrow.”

The next few cycles were races and practicing and little else. Drift never finished first, even in the little local races that didn't include the big names. But he didn't finish last again. And a few of his batch did finish first on small races – Courser and Deviton. After Deviton's victory, he regaled the cohort with tales from the victor's room.

“Kelaro told me that he has an apartment, all to himself! And he invited me out to drinks after the race. Apparently, some mechs just go out and fuel themselves real slowly out of glasses, just to be social, I guess? I didn't want to look stupid, but I didn't think Naucratis would let me go,” Deviton said, frowning as he fussed with his shoulder wheel. He always did that when he got anxious.

“Did he have a manager?” Drift asked.

“Well, yeah. But it didn't sound so much like he worked for his manager so much as the other way around? And he kept asking me what I thought of 'knock offs' and the political controversy. I wish we could get a vidscreen in here, I feel like such a gearhead when people mention stuff and I have no clue what they're talking about.”

“Good luck with that,” Courser said with a laugh. “Can barely convince Naucratis to spend the Shanix to fuel us on off-days.”

“But what if Naucratis is just conning us?” Deviton asked. “What if he's wrong and we don't need him? The other racers make it on their own somehow. And they afford fuel _and_ a room just for them.”

“Well yeah, but you were talking to the winner's podium. What about the rest of us?” Drift asked.

The breaking point was their big break. Six of them, Drift included, made it through the opening trials to compete in the Ibex Cup. Blurr's territory. His uncontested winning streak was ahead of them.

And then Courser won the secondary trials in a heat against Blurr. The race officials swarmed the scene, and Blurr's manager, Rouen, appeared out of nowhere to have start a screaming match with first Naucratis, then a race official and then everyone. Eventually a Functionist functionary showed up to settle the dispute.

“It is unfair for these _things_ to be competing against my racer. Their promoter openly admits that not only are they knock offs, but that he specially designed them to outcompete my star racer. He brags about it all over town!”

“Well, you didn't raise a fuss before, did you? You didn't care until one of them actually _won!”_ Naucratis hissed.

“Rouen, it's fine. It's not even the final race and I'm not knocked out as a competitor,” Blurr tried to interject, again, without success. “It's not a big deal.”

“They should not be allowed in the same racing league as regular Cybertronians!” Rouen shouted. “This _thing_ should be disqualified!”

“Racer, may I see your ID?” The functionary asked. Courser handed it over and the mech examined it. Slowly, as if he was poring over the scant text written on it. “He's a cold-constructed mech,” the Functionist announced.

The crowd quieted.

“Ibex has instituted a policy against cold-constructed mechs working in certain fields, to ensure certain labor standards. The racing league will have to examine their policies on cold-created mechs in general, but they are clearly barred from competing in the Ibex Cup. I'm sorry for the confusion,” he said to Naucratis as he handed back his ID card.

“Take that, knock off!” Rouen hissed, jabbing at Courser with his finger before running after one of the race officials to negotiate whether the race would be run again or the results allowed with Courser's name removed from the ranking.

When they got back, Naucratis locked himself in his office, ranting to himself under his breath. All of them sat by the door, audials adjusted as sensitive as they could go, trying desperately to hear what he was saying.

_The revelation was that, whatever a 'knock off' was, it was_ us. _I remember wondering if we were all clones – if there was some other mech out there who was an exact copy of me. Or maybe_ _we weren't real mechs at all, but only very convincing simulacrums? We really_ _didn't know._

_Eventually_ _he left his office and gathered us together. He explained what cold creation was – that our sparks had been grown by splicing off a section of someone's healthy spark, and that our bodies had been built_ _and designed by him. The sparks he'd gotten from a government program to get sparks into as many bodies as possible. And then he said that we weren't going to be able to race with the league anymore. That there was a lot of fear of cold created mechs stealing people's jobs and that to assuage those fears, a lot of cities were making rules against us working in certain fields – including entertainment. Since the racing league spanned many citystates, they ruled to exclude cold-created mechs at the behest of Blurr's agent._

“This isn't the end, though. We're going to start our own racing league, just for colds. We're going to move down to Tetrahex to do it, I've got a buddy down there who can get us track time. But money's going to be tight – funding a new venture ain't cheap and I've got all of you to feed. I'm not going to be able to bring all of you.”

They all exchanged horrified looks.

“Look, I hate to do it, but it's okay. You can just go down to the local Functionist office and get reassigned into another job, a different job. One that's still legal in Polyhex. To be absolutely fair, we're going to do it off your last race records."

They all knew who wasn't going to make the cut.

"That makes Ibis, Dodge and Evas. Sorry guys, but I'll see you over to the Functionist office myself and get you settled.”

“No.” Drift found himself saying. “That's not fair. Ibis only had a bad time on the last trial because I edged him out on his lane.”

“Are you offering to take his place?” Naucratis asked, bemused.

“Sure,” Drift said. “Can't be worse than staying with you. Maybe I'll find somewhere to work where they bother to tell you things, like 'Oh yeah, I bought your soul surplus from the government!'”

Naucratis didn't take that well. He pushed Drift over and leaned over him. “Well that's fine. You go ahead and do that. I built you _specifically_ to be good at racing and yet, somehow, you never won a race. You had one function, one thing you were supposed to do and you never even got close. I cared for you and I babied you and I wasted years of my life and thousands of Shanix on you! If you're going to be ungrateful, you can get out now.”

_So then he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me out the door. I waited outside till it got dark, I kept expecting some of the others to get kicked out as well? But they never showed up. And I was getting hungry and cold, so eventually_ _I tried to find the nearest Functionist office on my own._

 

“ _Wait.”_ Ratchet's own voice interrupted the story. “ _None of your other batchmates did anything? They just_ _watched this guy drag you out of your house and throw you on the street?”_

_We were in shock. Primus, I was in shock. I don't blame them._

“ _You don't blame yourself, either, right? That guy, practically_ _everything he was doing was illegal. Cold constructed mechs weren't the_ possessions _of factory owners. The Functionist that came to classify you all should have brought you to a job office, not left you with him. He must have been bribed. The first wave of cold constructed bots was chaos and rampant corruption, but even by that standard, what happened to you was far outside the norm.”_

_Well, he wasn't wrong about one thing – I was never any good at racing. I was built_ _for it, but I wasn't any good. It doesn't bother me so much now, but back then it really_ _got to me. Imagine if you were bad at medicine. Everyone could tell you were supposed_ _to be a medic, but you weren't good at it._

“ _But you're not_ for racing _._ ”

_I know. Why do you think I signed on with Megatron in the first place? He was the first mech to tell me that I wasn't 'for racing'. That I didn't have to be 'for' anything, except myself. After a couple hundred years of self-hatred, that was a more powerful drug than any circuit booster._


	2. Weaver

“ _So what did you do next?”_ Ratchet asked.

 _I tried to find the Functionist office. It took a while – it was already dark and the transit tracks weren't running. Eventually_ _an officer found me stumbling around and gave me a lift. He thought I was overcharged. But he didn't ask to look at my papers, so he didn't realize I was a Cold. That was the thing, nobody could tell unless they got a look at your ID. We got to the office and it was closed_ _for the night, but I convinced the officer to just_ _leave me there, said I'd go off to a oil shop and get warmed up while I waited for the place to open._

Of course, Drift didn't have any Shanix to ply at the oil shop, but the officer didn't know that. Once he was gone, Drift settled in to wait on the front steps.

 _It was about then that I started to wonder what I'd gotten myself into. The Functionist center was high up on one of the inner spires, from up there you could see all the lights of the city. And I realized I wasn't even sure_ where _in the city I'd been living. Like, I physically_ _didn't know where I'd lived my entire life. That was the moment it clicked. No matter what happened I'd never be able to go back to the stable and see my batchmates again._

Ratchet interrupted. “ _Did you ever see them after that?”_

 _Not most of them. I learned, much later, that the attempts at starting a Colds racing league went poorly. Naucratis turned them all out onto the street when the local government started hounding him about his workplace practices, but they were already making no money. Nobody wanted to see a bunch of no-names race each other when they could watch_ _cycle by cycle footage of Blurr and the other big-namers in reruns. After that, they all got separated. I met Ibis during the war. He said he didn't know what'd happened to the others, but that Courser might have left the planet during the Exodus._

“ _Did Ibis make it?”_

 _Dunno. He was an Autobot. We'd pinned down his squad and I was supposed_ _to be executing stragglers. I just...let him slip away. I hope he made it. I couldn't find any records of him after. But enough – you're making me lose my train of thought._

The next day, he was the first one in to the Functionist center. The mech at the front desk had been very helpful at first. “Oh yes, racers are eligible for a number of jobs, making full use of your God-granted gifts. Could I see your ID and we'll be on our way to placing you?”

Drift had handed over the ID card warily. Sure enough, the mech read over it and their face immediately closed off.

“I'm sorry,” they said. “We don't serve cold-constructs at the main office. It's against Polyhexian regulations to serve forged and constructed mechs on the same premises. But not to worry, you just need to make your way down to our office in the Construct Quarter.”

“I've never been there,” Drift said. “How do I get there?”

“Well, I would say to take the transit tracks on the red line, but you already explained that you don't have the funds. So what you need to do is get on the streets and follow the red numbers above the roadway. That'll take you down to the Quarter, and once you're there, ask around, the locals will know where the office is. Someone will be able to point you to our satellite office. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.”

“No, that's okay,” Drift said. “Thanks for helping.”

 _It was my first time in morning-rush traffic. But I made it, somehow. I couldn't read any of the signs, so it was lucky that Polyhex relied on a color-coded system. I get to the entrance of the Quarter, and it's like a ghost town. All the buildings facing the street were shuttered, no sign of life. I wandered the streets for nearly_ _a cycle before I found someone walking the street. I asked him about the Functionist center – he laughed and laughed. But he pointed me down the right street. I figured out the joke once I got there._

There had been a Functionist center in the Quarter once upon a time. But the place had been closed a long time by the time Drift came knocking. He kicked around in the rubble for a bit, inspecting the shatter patterns of the glass and the scorch marks on the floor. There was a sign on the door, but Drift didn't need to read it to get the picture.

“Hey, kid,” someone said. “You lookin' for a job?”

Drift spun. There was a mech leaning on the wall across the way, a big and boxy frame suited for hard labor. More distractingly, the mech was missing both arms at the shoulder. He noticed Drift staring and just smiled.

“The name's Levy. Ignore the arms, it's a temporary setback. You looking for a job? That's the only reason people tend to hang around this dump.”

“Um, yes? I'm Drift,” Drift added after a moment's hesitation.

“Nice to meetcha, Drift. Well, this was a good thought, but unfortunately they kinda shut down the office after a riot a few stellar-cycles back. So that ain't going to work. I could hook you up though. I know everybody round here, I could find you a spot.”

Drift looked around. The street looked just as empty as every other part of the Quarter, which is to say completely. “Everybody round here?”

Levy laughed, sauntering over and pacing around Drift. “You _are_ new in town. But you're a Cold, right? So what are you for, Drift? Something speedy, I bet.”

“I was a racer,” Drift said.

“Mm, I heard some Colds got kicked out of the racing league. Left you high and dry, eh? So you're fast. Are you flexible?”

Drift shrugged. Levy stared at him, unimpressed. Unsure what to do, Drift leaned over backwards and bridged up into a handstand.

“Okay, that's a yes,” Levy said. “Get down, you look like a moron. Fast, flexible, are you willing to work long hours for little pay? Just kidding, that's a requirement for every job round here. Come on, I know just the thing.”

Drift hurried to catch up with him. "Is this what you do? Is this your job?”

Levy huffed a sigh. “At the moment, yeah. I'm about seventy Shanix short being about to pay a medic to replace either arm. And I'm not much use in the shipyards with zero arms, so I'm playing odd jobs. Recruiter's one of them at the moment. My contacts pay me a five Shanix finders fee for each. I'm taking you over to see Spindle.”

Spindle turned out to be a stout bot who turned into some sort of very boxy car. His paint was flaking and he tended to fuss at it whenever he was anxious, which was approximately all the time. He ran the only textile workshop in Polyhex.

 _I know, right? I hadn't even considered that we_ made _fabric on Cybertron. But Spindle was a artisan. Dyed and wove the finest metallo-cloth, mostly_ _for funereal cloaks. Some even went to the Functionist council personally. But Spindle wasn't manufacturing the cloaks, just_ _the fabric. He sold that to two forged tailors in Upper Polyhex._

“So this is the new worker you've found me, eh?” Spindle said, reaching out for Drift with little 'come closer' wiggles of his fingers. Drift stepped closer and Spindle was instantly examining him, testing the mobility of his hands, wrists, checking rotation of the elbow joint. “A young one. You're clean, right kid? No circuit boosters, no Engex derivatives? I can't have anybody impaired around the machinery, they're worth more than you and me together.”

“I haven't even tried plain Engex,” Drift admitted.

“Even better. Keep it that way, save your money. Now, I can't offer very good wages. We're pulling in about thirty Shanix a week in this operation. I need ten for my fuel and apartment, another ten goes towards paying the energy bill, supplies, shipping. I like to put five aside each week for the emergency fund – case one of us gets in an accident or for the annual maintenance. That only leaves five Shanix a week for your salary, but if you want to, you can sleep in the office here and that'll save you rent,” Spindle rattled off, counting on his fingers.

“Better than most deals you're going to get round here, kid, and it's regular,” Levy put in.

“What do you think, Drift?” Spindle asked.

 _I had no clue if five was fair, or even if I'd be able to eat on that. But I had no clue what would happen if I said no – where else would I go? So I said yes. It was later on that I found out how_ good _five a week was._

 _Turned out, I really_ _liked Spindle. He was a bit neurotic and he could micromanage like Magnus on his best days, but I learned a lot from him. He'd dye and spin the thread and I'd run the looms. They needed you to be in about ten places at once, a lot of zipping around as you tried to keep the shuttle moving back and forth, the heddles moving at the same pace and it all coordinated to give the correct pattern. My first day I actually got up to speed I nearly_ _ran empty, I was moving so fast and focusing so hard._

 _But he most of what he taught me wasn't weaving. I learned how to read from him. I learned about money from him, about where to buy fuel and how to keep my head down and avoid trouble. That was the lesson I learned slowest. You can probably_ _imagine._

Ever since Spindle had explained what Engex actually was, Drift had been fascinated. He'd walked back to the workshop the long way, lingering at the edges of oil shops, watching the mechs within. They looked happy, he'd decided. And everyone who Spindle mentioned his Engex abstinence to treated him like a child forever-after. So Drift got it in his head he needed to try drinking. And rather than buying a dram of high grade and taking it back to his room to try, he was convinced he had to actually drink it at the bar of an oil house.

It took quite a few weeks of saving to scrimp the funds together for his night. Fuel prices had been rising steadily in the face of the population boom. But once he had the funds and worked up the nerve, he headed out to a cheap oil house on the edge of the Quarter.

 _Spindle had definitely suspected something, all day. He kept asking me if there was something I 'wanted to tell him.' I said no, but he knew anyway. So I get to this bar, I go up to the counter and I ordered a brawn. I didn't know what I liked, but I knew that was a drink 'tough guys' ordered. I tried it, it was disgusting and nothing happened. The bartender had to explain to me how to disable my FID chip. After that, I rapidly_ _transitioned from sober and disappointed to very, very sloshed. Which is when the Academy trainees showed up._

 _I remember there being three of them, I think, but the details get pretty hazy about this point. They were military, and they were upset_ _about the numbers of 'knock offs' in the most recent Academy class. They said something to that effect, then they started hassling people about their IDs, trying to insist the oil house should be a Cold-free space. Some people left, 'cause they could see trouble coming. I refused to leave. I had spent weeks saving up for that drink and it was too gross to drink all in one go. I think_ _they threw the first punch. But, like I said, hazy._

Drift woke up the next day back at the workshop, head aching worse than it ever had before. Spindle was there.

“So, not so much the tee-totaler after all?” Spindle had asked. “You're lucky Levy dragged you out of that fight before those guys stomped you literally into the floor. I received a most unpleasant call way too early in the morning.”

Spindle had then gone on to explain that his previous partner, the one who'd originally owned the workshop, gone missing after falling in deep with Engex and circuit boosters. “He was here less and less and his work got worse and worse and then finally he was gone. I tried running the place myself for a few days, but then Levy showed up with you. So yeah, I don't want you to drink yourself stupid. But if you want to try it out, do it here, where I'll know you're safe.”

They took the day off, since Drift was in no fit state to run the loom. He stayed curled up in the blissfully dark back room in his nest of textile scraps, arms cushioning his bent finial.

After that, Spindle seemed to get the idea that Drift was young and restless and needed distracting from his own bad judgement. He started taking him round the Cold Quarter social circuit. It wasn't a ghost town, it turned out. It was just invitation only. Everyone kept it close for fear of being the site of the next anti-knockoff riot. Mostly, they held hab parties.

It was at one of those hab parties that Drift learned to dance. Swindle had dragged him along to a tiny gathering of older mechs who's names Drift could no longer remember. The party started out same as ever, people lamenting recent local politics, while a few played music. Drift had kept himself to the corner, observing but not intruding as best he could – it was hard to not feel in the way when the hosts had to put away all their furniture to fit their guests.

But one of the guests, a slim glider named Nimbus, caught sight of Drift and dragged him out onto the dance floor.

Nimbus was fiery. He'd worked as a flier in the energon surveying program, scouting out new mine sites. But then the program was automized and his hopes of going offworld were crushed. Nimbus tended to work his frustrations out through dance. Dance, back then, was fiercely controlled. Tiny movements you could execute in a room full of people without bumping into anyone or wasting much fuel. It was all about the connection between you and your partner and the rhythm. Drift fumbled through it, the rest of the party jeering at them while Nimbus danced circles around him.

“You could be good at this if you got our of your head,” Nimbus whispered in his audial.

“I could be good at this if you were allowed to more more than three inches at a time,” Drift growled.

 _Which is apparently_ _how I challenged Nimbus to a dance fight. I won't even bother you with the details. It was very embarrassing. The important part is I lost, but a couple of parties later, I figured out how to keep to the rhythm._

_The workshop was the longest I ever stayed in one place. When I started, the fear about Colds was that we were stealing jobs. By the time it...ended, there was a legitimate fuel shortage going on. The mech who had taken our shipments uptown had to raise their fees so high we couldn't afford to pay them any more. I started carrying the shipments myself._

_So, one time I'm making a delivery uptown and Nimbus swoops out of the air right in front of me._

“There's a riot going on,” he said. “Don't go back to the Quarter. Get to ground and stay there.”

“Did you see Spindle?” Drift asked.

“No,” Nimbus said, swiping at their soot covered face. “I was just doing a flyover and I saw smoke in the Quarter. Everyone smart will be hunkered down. Spindle's been doing this a long time, he'll be okay.”

“You can't know that!” Drift said.

 _Nimbus tried to stop me, but he was a light little thing. He wasn't a_ jet _, he was a glider._

_I took the express road at full speed, until I hit the first police barricades. Then I shifted back and went through the back alleys. By then I knew the streets around the Quarter like the grooves on my t-cog. But by the time I got to the Quarter, everything that could burn was on fire and everything that could shatter was broken. Most of the actual rioters had been routed, but the police were taking a rather laissez-faire attitude towards the destruction._

_There was a chance they hadn't found the workshop. We were nestled_ _inside a building, on a lower floor, away from the street. We didn't have any signs or notices out that it was a commercial building. Getting in the back way took forever._

 _I knew they'd found the place right away. The smell of melting metallo-fiber was unforgettable. But I didn't know if Spindle was trapped_ _inside, so I went in anyway._

On the recording, Drift went silent for a long moment. Eventually, Ratchet interjected. “ _It's okay if you don't want to talk about it.”_

_No, I do. I just-I've never told anyone about this before. They lit him on fire._

“ _What?”_

_Energon is flammable. You're a medic, you know that. They split him open and lit him on fire in the middle of the workshop, surrounded by his life's work. By the time I got there, he had already faded._

“ _Who?”_

_Who knows? They'd written 'WE WILL NOT STARVE' on the floor, so my guess is angry forged mechs who were suffering because of the fuel shortage. I didn't stick around long enough to find out. The neighborhood was in shambles, Spindle was dead, our business was gone. And, apparently, there were people lurking in the shadows waiting to gut me and light me on fire if I stuck around. I made an offering for Spindle, said a few words and booked it all the way to Rodion._

“ _Damn. Why Rodion?”_

_It was closest and there was a fuel shortage going on. Rodion's where I ran empty._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why does Ratchet have a little doll shaped like Drift? An excellent question...

_...ran empty-_

Ratchet jammed the pause and hopped out of his seat to check on the fuel levels. Been paying so much attention to the recording he had forgotten Perceptor'd mentioned he'd need to refuel pretty early on in the journey. Ratchet breathed a sigh of relief – not great, but it'd be enough to get him to the next trading outpost.

He checked on the tracker again while he was at it. Still headed in the right direction, as long as it worked the way Perceptor had promised.

 

* * *

 

“So, Percy, where's Drift gone?” Ratchet had been pretty busy wrapping things up with the rest of the crew, but he'd made the time to see the ship's genius before he left.

Perceptor raised an optic, looking at him skeptically. “Exiled. This is not news. Are you feeling alright, doctor?”

“Naw, I'm fine, you misunderstood,” Ratchet had said, fingers dancing lightly over the workbench as he hunted down the tweezers he knew were somewhere amidst the active experiments. “I know you put a homing beacon in the shuttle Drift took when he left. I've decided I'm going to go fetch him back, but the whole of space is pretty big. It'd be nice to know where to start looking.”

Finally locating that pair of tweezers, Ratchet had cleared a little space on the workbench and laid out the model pieces he'd gotten from Ten. He was going to need a bit of paint to get the details just right, maybe he'd borrow some from his touch-up stash.

“You're going to bring him back?” Perceptor said. “But he's _exiled_.”

“Sure. He's exiled for doing something that Rodimus, Brainstorm, and Chromedome all _also_ participated in. Don't tell the whole crew that last part, Rod can and should take full responsibility as far as they're concerned. It's pretty fragging stupid, is what it is. Rodimus should have sent somebody to fetch Drift the moment he confessed.”

Perceptor was quiet for a moment. “He should have.”

Ratchet looked over his little pieces. It was pretty easy to see how the body went together, but he was going to need to cut some of the kibble out custom if he wanted it perfect. He'd start on the legs, they were fairly simple.

“Well, we're agreed on that,” Ratchet said. “So, what about those coordinates?”

Percy sighed. “I'm not...don't tell Drift I did that, alright? I know it was crossing a boundary. It's a low-resolution homing beacon, so I've got a direction but not an exact location. Wait here.” Perceptor wandered off out of the lab, presumably to fetch something. Ratchet continued working on his little figure. It was really impressive, now that he thought of it, that Ten had managed to assemble these with those big clunky fingers.

By the time Perceptor came back, he'd assembled enough of the body that it was obvious what he was making. “Okay, so this detector should point you in the correct direction and give an approximate distance. It's only calibrated to be accurate within a margin of-”

Perceptor froze, then carefully placed the device he was holding down on the counter, wandered over to Ratchet and lifted the model out of his hands. “Why are you making a tiny doll of Drift?”

“I can explain.”

 

* * *

 

Ratchet knelt down and waved the tiny doll in front of the colorfully dressed organic. “Have you seen this robot?” He asked. “Looks like this, but bigger. My size. Carries about fourteen swords, irritatingly cheerful?”

She pursed her lips and considered the figure. “Can I see?” She asked, reaching out for it. Ratchet handed it over reluctantly. In her arms, it was huge, more like a child than a doll. She looked it over, then lifted it for Ratchet to take back. “I think so. I think he was the nice robot who helped Dite fix his roof.”

Ratchet breathed a sigh of relief. His first yes in a sea of no's. He'd been starting to worry that Drift had gotten separated from his shuttle and Ratchet was following nothing. A Cybertronian _should_ have been memorable in this sleepy little trading port, and it was the last place to refuel for lightyears around. Drift's little shuttle would have needed to stop here, he was sure of it.

“You are the same shade of red,” the little organic continued, nudging at her glasses. “Are you related?”

See, and this was why Ratchet did his best to avoid talking to other species. They always took such a self-centered view of things that it was nigh impossible to extract the truth from their mucked up assumptions. “Nope. We don't have relatives,” he said, hoping to get directions to this 'Dite' person as soon as possible and escape.

“Oh yes, that's right. Robots.” She put her hands on her hips. “Well, clearly you're close if you're chasing him halfway across the galaxy. With a little hand-made doll of him. Oh! Are you lovers?”

“We're barely friends,” Ratchet said.

“Well, I highly doubt that,” she said.

Eventually, a fragging long time after Ratchet had lost all semblance of patience, he got her to give him the directions and bolted. Turns out, Dite's house was pretty easy to find. If he'd just wandered away, he would have found it - it was the only one with new metal roofing. The alien himself was a little tougher to rouse – Ratchet knocked on the door a few times before Dite opened the door.

Whereupon Dite took one look at him and slammed the door shut in his face. “I don't know anything!” He shouted.

 _What even?_ Ratchet rubbed at his chevron, where he could feel a tension headache starting up. “Hello, Dite? I don't know what you're scared of, but I mean you no harm. I'm looking for a colleague of mine, I'm told you'd interacted with him.”

“I'm not getting him in trouble!” Dite's muffled voice came from beyond the door.

“Drift's not in trouble,” Ratchet said. “There was a misunderstanding, I'm fetching him home.”

“But you're with the military. And Drift's a deserter,” Dite said after a minute. “You guys are definitely the sort that executes deserters, I've heard all sorts of stuff about Cybertronians.”

“Well, for one, you might not have heard this, but the war is over. We're not at war, I'm a doctor, I'm not 'with the military'. Secondly, Drift is not a deserter. I have no idea what Drift told you, but you appear to be cosmically misinformed.”

“The red face on your chest is your military crest. Drift had scratched his off, ergo, deserter. You still have yours, ergo, military.”

“Like I said, cosmically misinformed.” Ratchet thought of something and smirked. “I swear to Primus, I mean Drift no harm. I'm trying to help him. Will you come out and talk with me?”

Whatever fool self-hating rubbish Drift had managed to blurt out around the alien, he'd certainly managed to instill the notion of Primus, sacred high god that _no_ Cybertronian would _dare_ invoke in vain. That was enough to get Dite out of the house and talking. Yes, he'd seen Drift, but it'd been months ago. He'd met Dite at the fueling station and, when Dite mentioned his home repair problems off-handedly he'd offered to help. Ended up doing the whole thing himself.

“Yeah, Drift worked in construction for a long time,” Ratchet said amiably when Dite explained this, in awe.

“I didn't know you guys did anything besides killing each other and inventing killing machines.”

“Not so much in your lifetime,” Ratchet admitted.

Drift had stayed a few days, then went back to his ship in search of 'adventure'. He hadn't specified a heading or destination – Dite got the impression that he was just bouncing around, fleeing from something he wouldn't explain (but which Dite had assumed was the military hunting down their deserting soldier).

Eventually, Ratchet worked up the nerve to ask the most important question. “Did he seem alright to you?”

“In what sense? I mean, he had four limbs and didn't seem to be bleeding out. Other than that, you guys seem to be able to survive most anything. S'why you had to invent all those killing machines.”

“...did he seem jittery? Depressive?”

“Oh.” Dite considered the question, finger to his lips. “You're more than shipmates, aren't you? Are you his father? Same coloring, you know.”

“We are not related. Could you just answer the question, absent any speculation about my relationship with Drift?”

“I don't think he's suicidal, if that's what you're worried,” Dite said. “But he definitely has issues with self-worth. I asked him why he was headed out way aways from where all of you mechanical sorts tend to go – I mean, what if something went wrong? Where would you find someone who could fix you up? He just shrugged and mumbled something bout that 'not mattering'. Bit of a red flag there.”

Ratchet put up his hands. _What could you do?_ “Nothing new,” he admitted. “But thank you, I...I guess I needed to hear that.”

Dite didn't have much else useful to say, so Ratchet made his farewells. Once he'd paid and settled back in the pilot's seat, Drift's figure safely back on the dashboard, he looked at the starmap of the surrounding area and Perceptor's tracker. Drift was alive and he was onboard the shuttle, that was the important thing. Everything else could wait.

Once he was out of orbit, Ratchet cued up the recording again.

_Rodion's where I ran empty..._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BEFORE you read this chapter!!!
> 
> You may have noticed a long delay before this chapter – that's because I've abandoned writing this story. The good news is that instead I'm working on [Observing Drift](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11986614); which I think is going to be a better + more engaging exploration of Drift's past. Posting up what I'd finished here so you'd be notified and I could explain why I've stopped working on this story:  
> \- The angle is bad : I've realized there's no way to create dramatic tension when you're hearing a guy thinking about a recording of a guy telling you about something that happened 6 million years ago.  
> \- Accidental flawless Drift : Um, yeah, didn't notice when I was writing, but I accidentally made Drift into a paragon of suffering who can do no wrong? Considering how many bad decisions Drift makes in the present day, that seems pretty unlikely.  
> \- Filling in all the gaps : It's a bad idea to remove all the mystery surrounding a character. Also, since Drift is millions of years old, trying to fill in all the gaps was going to prevent us from getting in-depth about anything.
> 
> I do love the little details about Ratchet and his Drift figurine, so I may make that it's own story at some point in the future. 
> 
> So, anyway, if you've enjoyed reading this story I hope you'll enjoy the replacement just as much. Thanks for understanding – posting a WIP is always a dangerous decision.

“ _So that's when you ended up in Dead End, right?”_

In the recording, Drift laughed.  _Thanks for the vote of confidence. I lasted a long time before I slipped down that far, Ratch. There wasn't the same tight knit community of cold-constructed bots in Rodion, but there were some of us around. Anybody who needed a day laborer, usually construction or janitorial, knew that they could find the unemployed colds waiting by the docks. We'd all go down there each morning and do our best to look strong, healthy and employable. On a good week, you could pick up work every other day._

_I was only out on the streets for a few days before I found a group that needed a roommate. Six of us to a double hab, but that was alright. Never saw much of them, but they were okay guys. Trustworthy. None of them ever robbed me and there wasn't a syphonist among them._

_I'm boring you, aren't I? This isn't medical stuff. Honestly, not much happened for the next few hundred years. I worked a lot of jobs, I made ends meet. I gained some roommates, I lost some roommates. If you want we could just skip ahead to Dead End. I don't want to waste your time._

“ _Not like listening to you is stopping me from doing my job. If it makes you feel better, you could coil these up for me. Yeah, like that. Look, Drift, if you want to skip ahead, you can. But you're not boring me. Honestly, I'm intrigued – how is it you guys slipped past the Functionist mandate?”_

_It's pretty funny, looking back. You should ask how Rung made it through, I'd bet his story is interesting. But we were the ones who's functions were either illegal due to the anti-knockoff legislation, obsolete due to automation and mechanization or people who were too injured to fulfill their original purpose. The Functionists didn't want anything to do with us – we were the missing stairs in their Grand Cybertronian staircase to enlightenment. So when businesses needed someone for a day or two, usually because one of their actual employees had died or gone missing or Primus knows what else...the Functionists would overlook them hiring one of us to fill in the gaps._

_So, looking at it that way, we were the incredibly privileged few. For a brief few hundred years, I got to work every low status, unpleasant, poorly paying job in Rodion. But there were downsides to living at the fringes._

The biggest difficulty was keeping hold of your pay long enough to turn it into fuel. Since the assignments were under the table, they didn't get their pay deposited directly into their citizen currency card. They worked exclusively in cash.

Rush deliveries were Drift's favorite assignment, early on. Firstly, you'd get paid upfront with a bit of high quality fuel in order to get you to your destination as fast as possible. Secondly, it was a chance to stretch out and go full speed. Thirdly, tips.

_So, one day I get a guy who tipped me ten Shanix. I was floored. I mean, it obviously wasn't very much to him, but for me that was going to be a month's safety net. Or one amazing night out, I hadn't really made up my mind. I thanked the guy and then stashed each cash card in a different part of my subspace, because I'd started to get real paranoid._

They pulled out of nowhere. Three mechs boxed him in on the street on his way home, one of them ramming him hard enough that he crashed into a building. Another mech, enforcer sized and shaped, lumbered over to them. Drift revved, wheels spinning in a panic, unable to move. The enforcer lifted one enormous foot and stepped gently on Drift's hood.

“Shift.” He commanded, putting on a little more pressure with his foot. “Or we'll take the money off your corpse.”

Drift shifted. Instantly, there were hands on him, holding him down as they pried at his paneling. Drift thrashed in panic as they ripped open compartments and rooted around inside.

“I'll give it to you, you don't have to-”

“Eh,” the biggest one drawled. “You'd probably 'forget' one of the compartments. More thorough, this way. Flip him over.”

Drift scrabbled at the ground as three sets of hands rolled him over, face onto the pavement. It was a public road. There could be more traffic coming any moment. The enforcer set his foot back on Drift's back, the threat clear.

“You can always tell the folks on delivery duty, they go real fast on their way home. And the ones with good tips? They go even faster. Mm, only ten? Barely worth our time.”

_They hit me a little after that, but not too bad. I wasn't worth their time. Just left me lying there in the street, plating ripped open, compartments distorted, so scared I could barely see. I was so bent out of shape I was scared to transform and get stuck – it was a week before my self-repair fixed me up enough to transform. Anyway, that was the first time I got attacked in Rodion and the last time I took a delivery assignment. Too scared, after that._

“ _Self-repair? Drift, that's not the kind of...sorry. I know.”_

_See, that's the kind of thinking that really got me in trouble. Cause yeah, I got jumped a few times in those years. I jumped into one bar fight too many, I got mugged more times than you would_ believe.  _ But my real troubles started when somebody got the notion that I needed real medical attention. _

It was a construction assignment. Drift was working high up the side of a ship, doing a quality control on the rivets and plating, alongside fifty other mechs. They wore harnesses, slowly lowering themselves down the side of the ship as they worked.

The regular employees were all of the same frametype, and the harness didn't fit Drift terribly well, barely squeezing his thighs through the leg supports. But he made do. It was boring work, checking the ship surface section after section.

“Drift!” One of his coworkers yelled. “Look out!”

He looked up, just in time to be stuck between the optics by the falling rivet gun. The impact flipped him upside down. He slipped from the poorly fitted harnes, holding on with one leg as he dangled.

_ The impact shattered both optics, so I couldn't see the drop below. But I could hear everyone yelling. Yelling for me to hang on. _

Drift clung to the smooth surface of the ship, but couldn't find a handhold. His leg began to slip. Past the balance point, the fall was inevitable.

He hit the ground in an impact that knocked him immediately offline.

_ I woke up in Rodion's main medical facility. When I'd hit, I'd landed on a post, went straight through my fuel pump. They had to replace the fuel pump, both of my optics and my broken legs. I was stuck in the medical facility for two days, and even after that I could barely walk for another week when my self-repair finally caught up. _

“ _They saved your life – a fuel pump rupture can leak out in less than an hour.”_

_ I know, but I wasn't an official shipyard employee. I wasn't covered for emergencies. So that whole bill got attached to  _ me.  _ Three hundred and seventy Shanix. That was more money than I'd ever  _ seen _. I tried to explain that to them, but the price was the price. _

After a week's recovery, Drift was back at the lineup, trying to claim shift-work. But after a full stellar cycle, he'd only managed to pay back fifty. At which point the debt shifted from the hospital to a debt collection agency. They kept barging into the apartment, threatening Drift's roommates and trying to lean on them to recover the debt. His roommates were forced to kick him out, unable to deal with the constant harassment.

On the street, it was a toss-up whether his pay would be confiscated by the debt collectors or stolen first. Even on days where he got work, Drift went hungry more often than not.

_ I made a mistake. I admit that. But I was hungry and I didn't see any end in sight. That was the first time I tried to steal fuel. _

“ _How'd that go?”_

_I got caught. They called the Rodion police, I went to jail._

“ _You went to jail?”_

_Yeah. Ten stellar-cycles. It was still a fuel shortage – they took thievery real seriously. Jail wasn't so bad. They fed you, even if it was close to unrefined crude. Those debt collectors couldn't get to me in prison. Wasn't even solitary, since they needed to keep us working to be worth feeding. Of course, the big issue was when I got out – prisoners had their ID cards marked so everyone would know they were lawbreakers._

_No employer would touch me once I had that mark. I tried a lot of things, trying to get away from that mark._

**Author's Note:**

> Because of the framing device, this is written very much not in my usual style. If you have a hard time following, let me know and I'll try and fix. 
> 
> I can also be found on tumblr at [ notwhelmedyet](http://notwhelmedyet.tumblr.com/), rereading mtmte excruciatingly slowly and documenting the experience.


End file.
